My Connections to Play

“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”

Elizabeth Lawrence quotes

“We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.”

Ben Okri quotes (Nigerian author who uses magic realism to convey the social and political chaos in his country, 1959)

My Connections to Play

As I try to think of myself as a young child with no responsibilities and a relaxing atmosphere of my choice I catch myself going back to a place from my childhood it was an old lot with ( as I grew up in the city). This lot had a dirt mound, old big tree, broken glass from the winos’ across the street, some shrubs, lots of weeds and some grass. As I look at words this is no paradise, but I will spend hours from sun up t sun down here. My mom and grandma will give me old plastic margarine tubs. I will use glass carefully as my knives and I will cook and bake mud pies from sun up to sun down. My cousin penny will join me in our play. I spent many summer days picking ingredients, mixing my materials and pretending to be a baker.

My self guided play was encouraged by my mother and grandmother as they would encourage my imagination by providing me water and dishes to support my mud pie bakery. Even though they were supportive from time to time I would get in trouble for getting to dirty.

A short reflection on I feel play today is a little different from play I engaged in as a child. As a child I felt it was necessary to mix mud, cut weeds and use imagination. Disposal diapers once came in a large box and I would use that box as a Barbie house and I would sew scrap material together to make Barbie cloths. Children’s play today is different in regards to the materials they use are very realistic and readily available and imagination is slightly taken out of their play. We don’t have to pretend this is a camera here is a plastic camera.

My thoughts regarding the role of play throughout my life and in into adulthood as a reflection I can say my self guided play has shaped many of my adult interests. I love to bake in the fall and really all year I find it therapeutic. There is so much more to play than children dwindling away a day.

RELATIONSHIP REFLECTION

      I personally hold family relationships at a high value. I am grateful for the many different relationships I have had up to this point in my life. I have had both positive and negative experiences which have helped shape my ideals about relationships. My first relationship I am compelled to talk about is with my mother. We have always had a great relationship; she developed a relationship with me that she never had with her parents. I am thankful she taught me to be “firm but friendly.” She was both mother and father for many years. I learned independence early in life.

     Next, I have always wanted a large family. While growing up it was my brother and I. I wanted children and a lot of them. I really should be more mindful of what I wish for as I got seven. My husband is my best friend; we enjoy each others company, conversation, planning our future goals and our family time with the kids. He to had a single parent upbringing and we decided for our children they would have the childhood experience we had desired. Our relationship works because we work as a unit and we work together as a whole family to accomplish goals.

     My relationship with my children there are seven and as each child has a different personality each relationship is different. The older three are young adults living independently, working or attending college. I find our relationships are stronger now than ever before. They call me for guidance, wisdom, advice and the occasional cash. I feel they value the relationship they share with me and it is mutually respected.

     My younger children still at home fall under the parental umbrella. I find we develop good relationship with them through supporting their endeavors what ever it may be. Through my husband and I being actively involved in their interests it provides us opportunities to talk.

     I feel the special characteristics that surround each of these relationships is “good communication,” even when at first the conversation was confrontational everyone has the ability to walk away be objective consider the other persons point of view and then re-approach the subject. I learned good communication from my husband early on and I am grateful now. Through our modeling a good positive relationship our children reflect our ideas.

      I feel what I have learned through interacting with my friends and family having to be flexible and objective when dealing with different situations has better prepared me for when I am working with children and parents in the early childhood profession.